Budget trains through France, views of Rome and chocolate oat cookies

March 6 2022

Nigel Slater’s chocolate oat cookies from the Observer

Travel

UK 

I am loath to share this article as I want to go and stay in all the places but the Guardian has ten great places to stay for book lovers. The Daily Mail describes how Sedbergh is England’s capital of books so one to remember if it’s a rainy day in the Lake District. Note that Hay on Wye is in Wales.

The Guardian also has glorious places to visit in Kent which include Pashley Manor Gardens where there’s a Tulip Festival in April, a Rose Week in June, and Dahlia Days in late summer gardens  and Bedgebury Pinetum, two places now on my list.

The Times thinks Shrewsbury is overlooked as a place for a weekend break and it’s used as a location in the new BBC1 series of Great Expectations.

There are places to see and stay in the Isle of Skye in the Standard. I was looking recently at the Hebrides for a holiday but I think it’s going to have to be for next year as many places to stay are already booked up.

Europe

I’m starting with ‘five views of Rome in the Independent as I’m interested to see if one of my readers who lives in Rome agrees with its findings. There’s a city guide to Nice for a weekend break in the Times, Vilnius in Lithuania in the Daily Mail and one to Venice and especially the Dorsoduro area in the Independent.  

The Independent also has a road trip round Crete and cycling in the Alentejo. It says it’s one of the best areas in Portugal for exploring by bike and it’s easily accessible from both Lisbon and the Algarve.

There are more articles on train travel and I like especially the article by Simon Calder who tried out the new budget Ouigo trains that travel through France. In the Guardian, they took the railjet from Salzburg to Vienna and in the Daily Mail, they took a European tour by train from London to Vienna to Paris. 

25 cool new hotels in Greece in the Times, including some more affordable ones.

Restaurants 

In the FT, Tim Hayward wrote an article, ‘What is is about British hospitality?’

In the Guardian, Grace Dent was in Carlisle at Casa Romana, a typical Italian restaurant in her home town and ‘hoped they changed absolutely nothing.’

In the Observer, Jay Rayner has been in Manchester at 10 Tib Lane, website here ‘and found an awful lot to be stimulated by’. He thought it should be put ‘alongside places like Erst in Ancoats, the recently reviewed Climat, the soon to open Higher Ground, the Alan and Another Hand. All offer eclectic small plates and a knowingly idiosyncratic drinks list.’

In the Standard, Jimi Famurewa went to Chet, a Thai/American in he Hoxton’s new Shepherd’s Bush hotel in London W12 and thought it was magnificent.

In the Telegraph, William Sitwell went to St Barts, website here in the City of London to try the set menu and then is upsold truffle. He says ‘ it delivers a deft and clever example of modern British cooking.

In the Times, Giles Coren did a round up of four places as his usual lunch options had closed down, the Speedboat Bar in London W1, Ottolenghi’s Rovi in London W1, Chinese at the Four Seasons in Soho, and the Barley Mow in Duke Street, W1 owned by Cubitt House.

Recipes

The Telegraph comes up trumps this week with both Mark Hix’s and Diana Henry’s recipes. Diana Henry has written about ginger recipes for dark and stormy cake with rum and lime buttercream icing, sea bass en papillote with ginger, soy and Shaoxing wine, and ginger beer roast chicken with scorched pineapple which I am going to make later this week

Mark Hix gives recipes for Fish House burgers, a classic from the menu at The Oyster & Fish House in Lyme Regis, made with white fish and prawns, buttermilk fried chicken tortillas, and fish dogs which are ‘proper’ fish fingers in a bun.

Yotam Ottolenghi’s has recipes for vegan chocolate pots with tahini caramel , flavoured butters and mango pickle fried rice with crispy fried egg. There is a lemon curd butter, a chilli cumin butter and a salsa verde butter if you’ve got green olive tapenade or fresh pesto in your fridge. I don’t but I do have two jars of rose harissa paste, two of red pepper paste, and one of black olive tapenade, (don’t ask) so I might have a go with those.

Eleanor Steafel in the Telegraph also explores flavoured butters with her recipe for frying pan flatbreads with purple sprouting broccoli, goat’s cheese and chilli butter , which she says is inspired by Thomas Straker’s flavoured butters 

I have given up bars of chocolate for Lent but chocolate in things doesn’t count. This is so I have a snowball’s chance of doing it. I liked Nigel Slater’s recipes for chocolate oat cookies and crisp lemon creams as well as Nigel Slater’s recipe for chocolate espresso mousse with praline from last week’s Observer.

The best tinned fish recipes in the Times by the chef of restaurant Saltie Girl, Kathy Siddell

Calf’s kidney with mushrooms by Rowley Leigh in the FT. He says he’s always liked offal and ‘the king of the kidney world is the veal kidney’. My mother used to make a kidneys turbigo and I always choose devilled kidneys at the Bell at Langford but don’t think I’ve ever had veal kidneys .

Nancy Birtwhistle, one of the lesser known Great British Bake Off Winners give recipes in the Guardian to make microwave crisps, almond tarts with no ground almonds and a simple seed bread. I’m hopeless at making bread but tried hers and it worked.

Skye McAlpine makes tarts with shop bought pastry in the Sunday Times, a beetroot and horseradish galette, a fennel and parmesan tart and a Gorgonzola and pear tart. I like M and S butter puff pastry or the Jus-Rol one in the royal blue packet which is all butter.

Books 

BAO by Erchen Chang, Shing Tat Chung and Wai Ting Chung

is all about how to make Bao buns, and there are recipes here, including how to make the dough.